haiku.rag MCP Server
io.github.ggozad/haiku-rag
Local-first agentic RAG with hybrid search, reranking, and multimodal document retrieval with citations.
What is the haiku.rag MCP server?
The haiku.rag MCP server is an agentic retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system that answers questions about your own documents with citations to page numbers and section headings. It runs locally on an embedded LanceDB database with no server required, and supports hybrid search, multimodal embeddings, vision QA, reranking, and code-based analysis.
haiku.rag lets you index and search your own documents locally, then ask questions and get answers with precise citations. It combines vector and full-text search via Reciprocal Rank Fusion, supports multimodal embeddings and vision-capable QA models, includes optional reranking and evidence compaction, and exposes all capabilities as MCP tools for use with Claude Desktop and other AI assistants.
How to install haiku.rag
Copy-paste configuration for popular MCP clients.
Tools & capabilities
Tools this server exposes to the agent.
add-src— Index documents from local files, HTTP URLs, S3, or WebDAV sourcessearch— Hybrid vector + full-text search with Reciprocal Rank Fusion, returns chunks with page numbers and section headingsask— Question answering with citations; supports attaching images for vision-capable modelsanalyze— Complex analytical tasks via sandboxed Python code execution for aggregation, computation, and multi-document analysischat— Multi-turn conversational RAG with session memorytag— Name and manage database states for rollback and versioning
Use cases
- Index PDFs and web documents, then ask questions with precise citations to page numbers and sections
- Search documents using both semantic similarity and keyword matching simultaneously
- Analyze multi-document datasets with Python code execution (e.g., count mentions, aggregate metrics)
- Ask questions about embedded figures and images using vision-capable models
- Set up continuous document ingestion from file systems, HTTP endpoints, S3, or WebDAV sources
haiku.rag MCP server FAQ
haiku.rag is a local-first RAG system that indexes your documents and answers questions with citations. It combines vector search, full-text search, and optional reranking, and runs entirely on your machine using an embedded LanceDB database.
Yes, haiku.rag is open-source under the MIT License. You can use it for free, though you may need to provide your own embedding model (via Ollama, OpenAI, VoyageAI, Cohere, or vLLM) and LLM for QA.
Install haiku-rag via pip, then add it to your Claude Desktop configuration by setting the command to 'haiku-rag' with args ['mcp', '--stdio']. This exposes document management, search, QA, and analysis tools to Claude.
Embeddings: Ollama, OpenAI, VoyageAI, Cohere, LM Studio, and vLLM (with multimodal support on vLLM, VoyageAI, and Cohere). QA: any model supported by Pydantic AI, including local models via Ollama or vLLM.
Yes. It captures embedded figures during document ingestion and supports vision-capable QA models that receive figure bytes alongside text. You can also attach images to questions directly via the ask command or MCP tools.
No. It runs entirely locally with an embedded LanceDB database. It also optionally supports remote storage (S3, GCS, Azure, LanceDB Cloud) and includes a production ingester service for continuous indexing.
README (reference)
Source of truth, from the repository.
haiku.rag
Agentic RAG that answers questions about your own documents with citations to page numbers and section headings. Runs locally on an embedded database, no server required.
Built on LanceDB, Pydantic AI, and Docling. Full documentation at ggozad.github.io/haiku.rag.
New: vision and multimodal search. Picture-aware ingestion captures embedded figure bytes; vision-capable QA models receive them alongside text. Multimodal embedders put picture vectors in the same space as text, enabling text-as-query → figure hits and image-as-query retrieval.
Features
- Hybrid search — Vector + full-text with Reciprocal Rank Fusion
- Multimodal & cross-modal search — Multimodal embedders (vLLM, VoyageAI, Cohere) put picture vectors in the same space as text; supports text-as-query → figure hits and image-as-query
- Question answering — RAG capability with citations (page numbers, section headings)
- Vision QA — Vision-capable models receive figure bytes alongside chunk text; attach your own images to questions in
ask,analyze, MCP, and the chat TUI - Reranking — local cross-encoders, Cohere, Zero Entropy, or vLLM
- Analysis capability — Complex analytical tasks via sandboxed Python code execution (aggregation, computation, multi-document analysis)
- Evidence compaction — Optional capability that replaces earlier questions' search results on the request with the evidence they cited, so long conversations stop resending everything they retrieved
- Citation policy — Optional capability that requires every answer to declare what grounds it, including declaring that nothing does
- Conversational RAG — Chat TUI and web application for multi-turn conversations with session memory
- Document structure — Stores full DoclingDocument, enabling structure-aware context expansion
- Multiple providers — Embeddings: Ollama, OpenAI, VoyageAI, Cohere, LM Studio, vLLM (multimodal via
multimodal: trueon vLLM/VoyageAI/Cohere). QA: any model supported by Pydantic AI - Local-first — Embedded LanceDB, no servers required. Also supports S3, GCS, Azure, and LanceDB Cloud
- CLI & Python API — Full functionality from command line or code
- MCP server — Expose as tools for AI assistants (Claude Desktop, etc.)
- Visual grounding — View chunks highlighted on original page images
- Production ingester — Long-lived
haiku-ingesterservice with persistent SQLite queue, async worker pool with retries and a dead-letter queue, FS / HTTP / S3 / WebDAV source adapters, FastAPI control plane, and a browser dashboard for operators. See docs/ingester.md. - Tags — Name database states with
haiku-rag tagand roll back to them - Inspector — TUI for browsing documents, chunks, and search results
Installation
Python 3.12 or newer required
Full Package (Recommended)
pip install haiku.rag
Includes all features: document processing, all embedding providers, and rerankers.
Using uv? uv pip install haiku.rag
Slim Package (Minimal Dependencies)
pip install haiku.rag-slim
Install only the extras you need. See the Installation documentation for available options.
Quick Start
Note: Requires an embedding provider (Ollama, OpenAI, etc.). See the Tutorial for setup instructions.
# Index a PDF
haiku-rag add-src paper.pdf
# Search
haiku-rag search "attention mechanism"
# Ask questions with citations
haiku-rag ask "What datasets were used for evaluation?"
# Ask about an image (vision-capable model)
haiku-rag ask "Does this figure match the spec in the design doc?" --image figure.png
# Analyze — complex analytical tasks via code execution
haiku-rag analyze "How many documents mention transformers?"
# Interactive chat — multi-turn conversations with memory
haiku-rag chat
# Continuously ingest from configured sources (FS, HTTP, S3, WebDAV)
haiku-ingester serve
See Configuration for customization options.
Python API
from haiku.rag.client import HaikuRAG
async with HaikuRAG("knowledge.lancedb", create=True) as rag:
# Index documents
await rag.create_document_from_source("paper.pdf")
await rag.create_document_from_source("https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762")
# Search — returns chunks with provenance
results = await rag.search("self-attention")
for result in results:
print(f"{result.score:.2f} | p.{result.page_numbers} | {result.content[:100]}")
# QA with citations
answer, citations = await rag.ask("What is the complexity of self-attention?")
print(answer)
for cite in citations:
print(f" [{cite.chunk_id}] p.{cite.page_numbers}: {cite.content[:80]}")
For direct agent composition, see the capabilities documentation.
MCP Server
Use with AI assistants like Claude Desktop:
haiku-rag mcp --stdio
Add to your Claude Desktop configuration:
{
"mcpServers": {
"haiku-rag": {
"command": "haiku-rag",
"args": ["mcp", "--stdio"]
}
}
}
Provides tools for document management, search, QA, and analysis directly in your AI assistant.
Examples
See the examples directory for working examples:
- Docker Setup - Complete Docker deployment with continuous ingestion (
haiku-ingester) and MCP server - Web Application - Full-stack conversational RAG with CopilotKit frontend
Documentation
Full documentation at: https://ggozad.github.io/haiku.rag/
- Quickstart - Provider setup and first ingestion
- Installation - Packages and extras
- Configuration - YAML reference
- CLI - Command reference
- Python API - Complete API docs
- Capabilities - Native Pydantic AI RAG and analysis capabilities
- Tuning - Retrieval and answer-quality tuning
- Ingester - Production ingester for continuous indexing from FS, HTTP, S3, and WebDAV
- MCP - Model Context Protocol integration
- Remote processing - Offload conversion to docling-serve
- Applications - Chat TUI, web app, and inspector
- Benchmarks - Performance benchmarks
- Changelog - Version history
License
This project is licensed under the MIT License.
<!-- mcp-name is used by the MCP registry to identify this server -->mcp-name: io.github.ggozad/haiku-rag
Related MCP servers
Deterministic Korean Saju / BaZi Four Pillars MCP. Day Master, five elements, compatibility.
Deterministic Pythagorean numerology MCP. Life Path, Destiny, Soul Urge, compatibility. No API key.

io.github.ghdejr11-beep/saju-mcp
Korean Four Pillars of Destiny (Saju/Bazi): calculate, interpret, compatibility & daily fortune.

Ghost in the Droid
Give any LLM agent a real Android or iPhone as its body with 62 MCP tools for mobile automation.

Ghostchars
Find and remove invisible Unicode: zero-width, tag smuggling, bidi, homoglyphs. Offline.
Minimal MCP server for Ghost Security API - compatible with all MCP clients